The present invention relates generally to electronic games utilizing balls, and more particularly to such games that detect where a ball bounces by means of sensors when the ball breaks or deflects an electromagnetic beam.
Visible and infrared light beams generated by transmitters and aimed at receivers are well-known as arrangements that can detect when an object or person moves between the transmitter and the receiver, thus blocking the beam from reaching the receiver. For example, elevators have long been equipped with a beam transmitter positioned at one side of an elevator door and beamed at a beam receiver positioned at the other side of the door. The elevator doors are not permitted to close whenever the transmitted beam does not reach the receiver, since it is presumed that some person or object (such as boxes on a dolly) is blocking the elevator door. Similar arrangements are used in conjunction with conveyor belts to detect when boxes and other objects are passing by a work station. Such beams are also used as burglar alarms.
Infrared beams are also used widely in remote controls for television sets and other electronic appliances. In such applications, the beams are normally broader and not so focused, since such remote controls are normally hand held. Since several controllers may be in operation at the same time, the infrared beams generated by remote controls are typically modulated with a different encoding depending upon both the appliance being addressed and also the desired function. Decoders in the television sets and the like decode the information conveyed by the beams first to determine if the information is directed to that particular television set or other appliance and secondly to determine what function is called for.
Infrared beams and visible light beams are also used in conjunction with some touch sensitive computer displays. Horizontal and vertical beams are sent from transmitters to receivers across the surface of such a display to detect any finger that touches the screen and to determine, by which horizontal and which vertical beam is broken, the approximate X and Y coordinates of the finger pressed against the screen.
Electromagnetic transmitters capable of sending beams to electromagnetic receivers have been used in a variety of games and sports activity motion tracking devices in the past. U.S. Pat. No. 5,145,182 discloses a game where the players use mirrors to selectively divert the path of laser beams towards and away from targets. U.S. Pat. No. 5,846,086 discloses a system that uses a stationary electromagnetic wave transmitter with three orthogonally-disposed antennas to detect the motion of a sensor attached, for example, to a ping pong paddle, the sensor having three orthogonally-disposed coils. U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,554 discloses a simulated gun which beams a focused beam of light at a retro-reflective target such that the beam is reflected back to a receiver also mounted on the gun if the gun is properly aimed at the target. U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,484 discloses a simulated ping-pong game where light beams are directed to the fore-hand and back-hand sides of a player, and the player must, within a given short time period, deflect those light beams with a hand-held paddle having a light-diffusing surface such that light is reflected back to a receiver whenever the paddle intercepts the beam. U.S. Pat. No. 4,192,507 discloses a shooting arcade game with multiple simulated guns and multiple targets, each target having a light sensor, each gun having a light pulse transmitter, the system using time multiplexing to determine which gun hit which target. U.S. Pat. No. 4,150,825 discloses two infrared light sources and three linear arrays of focused multiple infrared light sensors. The three linear arrays of multiple sensors, by capturing infrared light reflected off of a driven golf ball, are able to record the left-to-right positioning of the golf ball in three spaced-apart planes oriented generally perpendicular to the golf ball's outward path of travel as it travels away from a golfer and also its return path of travel after it bounces off of a target screen.